Day 56: Crossroader's Bar and Casino

[fourstonewalls]

Doyleton, Lana had surmised within the first few hours of her last visit, was too ordinary. Nothing this trip, even the abandoned building, had made her reconsider that assessment. She hadn't found the point where the small town stopped, and the lie started, where she could slip in a well-placed word and start to unravel the whole shebang

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[doneinthree]

After posting his update on the grocery store bulletin, Kirk spent the next couple of hours browsing the stores for what he could acquire with his measly ten credit card. The answer: not a lot. He'd familiarized himself pretty well with Doyleton the last time he was here and already had a good idea of what was on sale - practically anything a person (of the twentieth century) might want, really - but even when you were lucky enough to track down something useful for under ten dollars, there was no guarantee the staff would let you have it. Anything sharp or even remotely weapon-like? No. Anything flammable? No. Simple mechanical tools? Nope.In the end, Kirk did pick up a sturdy lanyard for his flashlight (oh, what he would give to get a Starfleet utility belt included with his things), and called it a day. There was little chance of finding anything decent for four dollars if he could barely find anything for ten, and besides, he had an appointment to keep

[doneinthree]

Kirk eyed him for another silent moment, trying to decide what to do. Bones sounded lucid right now, but he'd sounded lucid last night too - it was just the abrupt anger and a few odd details which had indicated something was wrong, something more pressing than just physical illness. He might've been doing better, but what Kirk had observed so far was far from reassuring. Who wasn't here? 'He' could be anybody, but his gut feeling told him it was Spock. Kirk wouldn't have minded his first officer here - if there was anyone right now whom he trusted implicitly, it was Spock - but he'd made a point of obscuring their meeting place for a reason. He'd sensed a strange tension between them, and Spock mentioned earlier that McCoy's shadow had implied the doctor was suspicious of him for some reason

[hes_deadjim]

Jim was silent. McCoy decided to take it as a bad sign. They were here as officers, not friends, and he wasn't fooling himself into thinking this was all information gathering. There was still the matter of last night and the consequences. He didn't think he was getting off with a slap on the wrist. Not like he usually did. Now he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And there it went. The blood drained out of McCoy's face. He could have taken anything else but those next words. It was all the doctor could do to push down the stray flare of panic, the one that was threatening to sink its claws in just like up in the autopsy room.

"No." The words were out of his mouth before Kirk even finished speaking. McCoy tried to work the saliva back into his suddenly dry mouth. "I don't want one. I just need to actually rest," he tried to explain. "The mission hit the entire away team hard. I'm not the only one who was affected by it."

Just the only one with headaches, he thought. They'd all had to get evaluated immediately after,

[doneinthree]

He hadn't known how Bones would react, or so Kirk would've said if questioned on it. If he had, he definitely wouldn't have chosen "trying to leave" as his answer -— Bones was not a man who ran from confrontation, not as long as he'd known him (and not in any matter which didn't involve ex-wives, at least) -— but on the other hand... there had been a reason that Kirk hadn't sat down. The moment Bones slipped out of his eye-line, he pushed away from the bar and maneuvered himself in front of the doctor with a quickness and certainty most didn't expect when seeing him lounge at a bar. Bones -— the other Bones —- had seen him in this kind of setting enough times to not underestimate him. Kirk doubted he needed to do more than just stand there for this McCoy to get the message that fleeing wasn't going to work for him

[hes_deadjim]

A look of surprise crossed his face when Kirk planted himself in front of him. It was quicker than he expected, especially considering how easily the Captain had been lounging at the bar. One moment he was casually leaning to the side, the next, he was suddenly a living roadblock. McCoy looked him in the eye and, for one reckless moment, actually considered jostling him out of the way. The expression on Jim's face and the tone in his voice, that one was all Captain, not his friend, brought him back to his senses. What the hell was he thinking? Shoving the Captain? And he had seriously considered it. McCoy obeyed, rooted in place.

He needed to get out of here. He needed somewhere he could get some fresh air. The building felt too hot, too crowded with Jim closing in on him. At least McCoy had his word that he wasn't going to make it an order. He was willing to follow Kirk to hell and back, but that order was where he drew the line. He'd rather lose his place on the Enterprise, get dumped out in some backwater hospital in the middle of

[doneinthree]

From his stance to the look on his eyes, there was no question that Kirk had readied himself for a confrontation, which made his expression of surprise all that more noticeable when Bones dropped his gaze. That was it? He'd been prepared for- well, something a lot worse than that. Calling any doctor unfit for his job was asking for a fight; doing it to Bones practically guaranteed it. Not only was he not giving Kirk an earful right now, he'd said thanks.

But then the thing which always made Bones different from most of the doctors Jim had known was that Bones would never hesitate to go above and beyond the call for his patients, even at the cost of his pride, and there was no small amount of pride there. So it was bad, then. In a way, he would've preferred an argument, because at least there would've still been that little seed of doubt over whether or not he was overreacting. Like this, knowing that Bones thought he was right to relieve him... Kirk sighed and glanced off for a second, looking less like a Starfleet captain